A 10-year journey to energy independence. Join us as we recap the 8-year planning stage and the final design for a unique passive solar energy neutral home. Then stay with us for a blow-by-blow description of four years worth of do-it-yourself construction followed by documentation of the home's thermal comfort and energy efficiency over time.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Wild Ones is a national organization that promotes landscaping with native plants. A succinct description of the carbon cycle, which under-girds any environmental discussion, appears in the March/April, 2014 issue of the Wild Ones Journal. The author, Daniel Kjar, PhD, Myrmecology, Ecology &
Evolution, had this to say:

"Carbon
is an element that makes up both plant and animal life on Earth. Carbon is the backbone for most if not all
organic molecules. Through a process
called "photosynthesis" that only plants can do, they use the sun's
energy to combine carbon, oxygen and hydrogen to make glucose, a simple sugar. Every
other living thing utilizes the sugar molecules manufactured by plants to
obtain the carbon for whatever is needed.
We humans convert the sugar into fats, proteins, nucleic acids and
numerous substances that make up our bodies.
This cycle of carbon can be represented as:

(I guess it is safe to say that some animals exist on plants
(herbivores), some exist on animals that exist on plants (carnivores) and the
rest exist on both (omnivores).)

Fossil Fuels

He goes on to say that, "Organic
matter.....can slowly turn into long chain carbons......that we use as fossil
fuels. The burning of fossil products
that we mine from the ground.......releases far too much carbon into our
atmosphere, creating the Greenhouse Effect that is heating our
atmosphere."

Global Warming Controversy

When Darwin introduced natural selection, the reaction to it
took several contentious decades to work through three stages that all profound
truths seem to have to go through -- ridicule, opposition and acceptance --
while financial interests confuse,delay and deceive. Do you see a parallel for global warming?

Native Plants

Native plants not only produce food for wildlife, but, by
mitigating global warming, make the planet a healthier place to live. They are easy on finite resources in that
they do not need watering (water is becoming the world's most valuable finite
resource) or fertilizing or mowing (both of which require the finite resource --
petroleum). Native plants had
been doing a good job of sequestering carbon for 20 million years until the
Europeans came to plow them under, cut them down and burn them off.

If you have any interest in natural landscapes, we heartily recommend becoming a "Wild Ones" member as an opportunity for networking, sharing information and exchanging seeds. We have already started using natives for the landscaping we can do before construction is finished and plan to maximize native landscaping post-construction. Fortunately, we will be able to tap into the broad expertise of the more knowledgeable fellow members of Wild Ones.

About Me

Lucky to have had a Dad who was handy and included me in his projects, so I learned to work with tools and fix and make things at an early age. Remodeling several properties, including one gut rehab, honed my "handy" skills over time. Became interested early on in passive solar, earth sheltering and sustainability but never dreamed I would be as thoroughly immersed in it as I am now.